enough's enough. let's play "hardball." good evening, i'm chris matthews in san francisco. leading off tonight, dirt ball. i suppose if you really want to get down in the mud and show how much dirt you get your hands into, you start calling people spies and traitors, that's what you're desperate and sleazy enough to go after a quiet deputy to hillary clinton. someone who can't defend herself. better yet, you sing out a chorus of sleaze.

people like john sanunu saying the president himself ought to learn how to be an american. but the republican candidate himself saying how far in the president is. then to put the chart at the top of this sunday from held you have michele bachmann with help from glenn beck doing their best to charge that the whole government, including john mccain himself, are part of the crowd taking orders from the muslim brotherhood. tonight we hear the first whistles being blown. republicans like john mccain and lindsey graham, people who served the country in uniform. people like ronald reagan are standing up for this un-american talk. god save mccain and say i say and all the left, right and center who say enough's enough. joining us is editor at large, joe walsh. john feary is here. john, how do you explain this cacophony about people learning

how to be an american, the charges, you have the candidate himself on your side talking about the president being far in in his thinking. what's that angle that we are getting? because bachmann is the ultimate case of this. >> well, let me first disassociate -- take these two things apart. michele bachmann's thing is absolutely outrageous. i don't know what she's up to. i think mccain was absolutely right. you can quibble or have serious disagreements with obama's foreign policy but throwing her under the bus is ridiculous. it's as dangerous as john boehner said. it's a distraction from what the campaign should be all about, which should be about the economy. if you're talking about the rhetoric coming from mitt romney and others, all is fair in love and war when it comes to politics. they're saying the same thing about mitt romney. they're calling him unamerican. stephanie conner is calling him a felony. >> wait a minute. wait a minute. has anybody questioned his citizenship?

>> they've questioned where he's putting all his money. [ talking at once ] >> they are questioning everything about him, yes. >> no difference between questioning a guy's tax returns and whether he's american or not. there's no difference. >> there's a difference between the rhetoric of michele bachmann which is horrible and the rhetoric -- >> let's go on here. >> john sinunu apologized for the comments and he should apologize. >> what did john sinunu say? you are saying it is so much different than what michele bachmann said, you are saying it is un-american. where does that come from? why did he say it? >> i don't know why he said it. >> why does the candidate of the republican party say the president is foreign? >> i think he's talking about the fact that the president is trying to import european style democracy or socialism in america. that's a policy disagreement. i think that's altogether an appropriate discussion.

>> it's a policy disagreement to say -- okay, all right. i think it all fits together. we are talking about michele bachmann. he ran her campaign for president most of us remember. here he is in an op-ed yesterday. he toured with the congresswoman who works for hillary clinton. here's what he wrote. having worked for congresswoman bachmann's campaign for president, i am fully aware that she sometimes has difficulty with her facts. but this is downright vicious. and reaches the late senator joe mccarthy level. as a member of congress with a seat on the house intelligence committee, mrs. bachmann, you know better. this is rollins speaking. shame on you, michele! you should stand on the floor of the house and apologize to huma amedin and secretary clinton and all the muslim-americans for your wild and unsubstantiated charges. other republicans call for bachmann's charges to be recalled. they called out lindsay graham. today john boehner was asked about it. here's what the speaker said. >> i don't know huma, but from

everything that i do know of her, she has a sterling character. and i think accusations like this being thrown around are pretty dangerous. >> well, you might get the idea, joan, if you're somebody like michele bachmann with her intellect, you may get the idea this is okay because you have the other guys throwing this stuff around. you go further but in kind. i disagree with john. i think it's in kind with what we're getting from the other guys. your thoughts? >> let me start by saying michele bachmann is joe mccarthy in lipstick and she's a dangerous american. i want to start by welcoming joe to a role of decency, where senator john mccain took us and ed rollins is taking us. chris, the rhetoric in this country is dangerous that it is important to acknowledge they have now staked out a lunatic fringe. they have now said certain kinds of comments are beyond the pail. that's a good thing. we should applaud that today. and you know that a however is coming. however --

>> here's something, by the way, i like fury a lot and know what he has to do sometimes. defend the indefensible. but in this case, he's saying the right thing. michele bachmann is off the rails. by the way, here she is finding someone who agreed with her. she was on today with glenn beck. >> oh, yes. >> beck defended the congresswoman and attacked john mccain who he said is marching to the orders of the muslim brotherhood. that's john mccain being accused of that this time. >> war hero. >> you have to keep up with your crowd. they're a little frisky out there. you have to keep up with them. let's listen to glenn and michelle. >> john mccain and all the elephant media are falling right in line with the muslim brotherhood. >> michele bachmann continued her dangerous and total unsubstantiated claims against clinton's aide. listen to her. >> she's the chief aide to the secretary of state. we quoted from a document, this

has been well reported all across arab media, that her late father who is now deceased was a part of the muslim brotherhood. her brother was a part of the muslim brotherhood and her mother was part of the muslim sisterhood. >> i can call this a parallel universe but it's, of course, part of the far right, not your right, but it's out there. how do you separate this kind of stuff from the mainstream republican conservativism? >> well, i was talking to several members of congress about this today and members of congress look at michele bachmann and think -- >> there are four other guys in this besides her. >> but we are just talking about michele bachmann. she's the attention of the story. there are good guys in part of the letter, but they are wrong. you have to be really careful on these types of attack. the language she's using is eerily paralleled to what joe mccarthy said. you have to know your history. you cannot make these accusations without some real hard proof. and to demonize someone like

huma, i thisnk, is a huge mistake. >> the romney campaign -- getting back to the candidate here to make the president sound anti-business. take a look at this ad. i think it is misleading. everybody watch and then we'll watch the real thing it was taken from. >> if you have been successful, you didn't get there on your own. you didn't get there on your own. i'm always struck by people who think, well, it must be because i was just so smart. there are a lot of smart people out there. it must be because i worked harder than everybody else. let me tell you something, if you got a business, you didn't build that. somebody else made that happen. >> let's take a look at the actual president's statement here. let's take a look at this, the president's statement. >> if you are successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. there was a great teacher somewhere in your life. somebody helped to create this unbelievable american system that we have that allowed you to thrive.

somebody invested in roads and bridges, if you got a business, you didn't build that. somebody else made that happen. >> john, the way i heard that, he's talking about the bridges and roads, you didn't build that. he didn't say you didn't build your own business, he said that. and then he said somebody else made that happen, not your business. the reference is clear and that commercial makes it look like he's saying, you didn't build your business, somebody else did. he's talking about the roads and infrastructure without which you can't make a business work. that's all he's saying. your thoughts? >> well, my thoughts are that the president made a lot of those comments, all those comments quoted in the ad, but the big thing is it is not about the ads, chris. >> well, is the ad accurate? >> the ad is accurate enough -- >> accurate enough? >> far more accurate than most of the obama ads. >> come on. this is pathetic. this is flackery.

>> can i make this one point? >> no, not if you're going to make that point again. that adds to the distortion. >> let me make this point. the point is this, chris, the ads don't matter. the economy matters and the president has done nothing for the economy. you know that! >> joan says it is not about the dishonesty of the romney campaign. >> it's about the economy, which the stimulus did bring back from the brink. you cannot say the president has done nothing for the economy, john. that's just not true. and there is a fundamental point in the ad and the president's speech we need to debate going up to november. and that is the democratic vision that we had help getting into the middle class. my family did. chris' family did, your family did, john. we built roads, we educated people, we had a commitment to public universities. >> thank you, joan. john, i know when you know you're wrong, your voice gets real high. have a nice weekend. coming up, throw mama from the train.

president obama says that's what mitt romney wants to do with medicare. the president took the medicare issue to where it matters most politically, the state of florida. also, running against romney. we'll talk to the whom with ran against him for governor of massachusetts. shannon o'brien. what's it like and what did she learn? and the great new series "the newsroom" he'll join us live in our newsroom, the real thing this time. and the honest of odd couples, newt and snooki. we have to see that in action. here it is. >> newt, snooki. snooki, newt. >> what a deal. >> what up? >> more of that in the "sideshow." this is "hardball," the place for politics. hajimemashite. hajimemashite. hajimemashite. you guys like football ? thank you so much. i'm stoked. you stoked ? totally. ... and he says, "under the mattress."

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>> save me! >> what are you doing to my mama? >> making a wish. what do you think i'm doing? >> help! whoa, throwing momma from the train. welcome to "hardball." that's the famous scene from "throw momma from the train." the ryan budget plan which romney supports would decimate medicare. a point driven home with some exaggeration by this famous ad. let's listen to this ad. ♪

>> strong images there, wouldn't you say? today in florida president obama opened a new front in his fight against romney making sure voters know romney would end medicare as we know it. basically he'd throw momma from the train. let's listen, this is serious business, this is not just comedy here. romney's plan in the ryan plan. the ryan plan gets rid of medicare and replaces it with some kind of a voucher program. that can put you in a precarious position if you have health needs. let's listen. >> he plans to roll back health care reform, forcing more than 200,000 floridaens to pay more for their prescription drugs. he plans to turn medicare into a voucher program. so if that voucher isn't worth enough to buy the health insurance that's on the market, you're out of luck.

you're on your own. one independent nonpartisan study found that seniors would have to pay nearly $6,400 more for medicare than they do today. >> dee dee myers is a former white house press secretary to bill clinton and contributing editor to "vanity fair." eugene is an msnbc political analyst. if i got a pulitzer prize, i'd never stop saying it. anyway, thank you. and i don't think i'm going to get one, obviously. let's talk about this, let's get through the analysis here. it seems like it's fair, it's tough the advertising over the top you might argue but it's fair in this sense. romney has bought into the ryan plan. ryan gets lots of kudos for guts. but his plan does do what the president says it would do, right? >> well, yeah, it does. it would turn medicare into a voucher program. it is fair to say in my view that it would end medicare as we

know it. it would create something else that would be called medicare. it wouldn't be the program we know. so this is pretty much a fundamental question. whether you make medicare into a voucher program or you keep it as an entitlement. and i believe the polls show that most people want to keep it the way it is. they don't want it to be a voucher program. >> they love it. >> and it's perfectly fair game. >> we know people on medicare. some of our older brothers. they love it. for the first time in their life they get something for all the work they did. dee dee, let me ask you about this. everybody says cut the budget. cut spending. and it's a good idea. we have a big deficit. how about just cutting the deficit through different taxation policies. but the minute you get to the reality of these cuts, and here we are. you like the ryan cuts, you like him cutting things? here's what he's cutting. medicare. explain it. defend it. i think that's the problem romney's going to have between now and november. >> right. and the broader question you

just raised, we have a deficit, we have a debt. these have become problematic and everyone agrees with that. then you get into the details of whose option are you going to go for and whose order are you going to protect in order to do something about that? are you going to go after the most vulnerable as the ryan budget does? not only cutting medicare but things like education and other important spending that helps the most vulnerable. or are you going to provide tax cuts for the rich or are you going to preserve some of those programs in order to move toward a society where everybody has an equal shot and everybody has a chance. they're going to say that the president's trying to scare people, but this isn't just an important issue. it's central to the philosophical differences, the philosophical divide that separates barack obama and mitt romney. you're going to hear a lot about it. on top of that, of course, the research shows it's effective with seniors. >> let me ask you about the reality here. gene, it's good to talk the fact you're going to be a different kind of president than obama. then you have to explain what that means. you're not just a relief pitcher coming in a difficult part of the game.

you're coming in with a different part of the approach. it seems if he's going to cut taxes further for corporations, he's going to keep the cuts for the wealthy and make them permanent. he has to come up with some cuts on the other side or he's going to increase the deficits. it looks like these are the cuts. this is what going to pay for the extension of the bush tax cuts and the corporate tax cuts. >> absolutely. mitt romney has not spelled out precisely what he would cut when he talks about reforming the tax code. he hasn't spelled out what loopholes he would close, for example. you want to start taxing health benefits. do you want to end the mortgage interest deduction, those are the big things that you could do with the tax code that would bring in more money. you've got to be specific. i agree that you can't run all the way to the white house by saying, i'm going to do it right without spelling out how you're going to do it.

>> go ahead, dee dee. >> i'm just going to add, it's important to note that the ryan budget doesn't help the deficit in the foreseeable future. in fact, it adds hundreds of billions of dollars of additional debt. >> thank you. v have a nice weekend. in this corner, the former speak of the house, newt gingrich, and in this corner, snooki. that can only mean one thing, the "sideshow" is about to come. and this is "hardball," the place for politics. that wonderful thing. and you smiled. and threw it. and i decided i would never, ever leave it anywhere. because that wonderful, bouncy, roll-around thing... had made you play. and that... had made you smile. [ announcer ] beneful. play. it's good for you. constipated? phillips' caplets use magnesium,

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bush made some news yesterday in his interview when he praised mitt romney. and i was shocked by how quickly they made his romney endorsement into a campaign ad. this was fast. take a look. >> you know, i'm interested in politics. you know, i'm a supporter of mitt romney. i hope he does well. >> i'm barack obama and i approve this message.

>> former president bush's first romney endorsement came back in may as a set of elevator doors were closing on him, the former president. he said to a reporter i'm for mitt romney. that's how grand that was. moving on with the sideshow, newt, meet snooki. no joke. that's what happened in last night's "tonight show." the former speak of the house wound up on the couch next to the star of "jersey shore." what could they have bantered about? between books, parties, strippers, and alcohol, a lot of ground was covered. >> i never thought i would say this, newt, snooki. snooki, newt. >> what a deal. >> what up? >> congratulations on two "new york times" best sellers. >> thank you. i'm trying to be like you. >> how about jionni will he have a big bachelor party? will you allow strippers and things like that? >> yes. i feel the guys should have strippers. you're going to be married to the same girl your whole life, so enjoy it. did you have strippers? >> no.

>> do you drink, newt, by the way? >> sometimes. >> good for you. >> when was the last time you just got wasted? >> thinking about coming on this show. >> newt tweeted before the interview he hoped snooki liked zoos and animals. we know that story. they didn't quite get to that one, however. they got to it here. he loves that stuff. we've heard this question more than a few times about some of mitt romney's potential running mates. are they just too dull? well, tim pawlenty went to a new level to show some flash in a fox interview just yesterday. >> you're considered at least by the romneys we are told -- this could be wrong -- safe, reliable, steady as she goes, nothing too flashy. dare i say dull. >> if you goad me into it, i'll show you my tats. i'm not as flashy as some, but compared to some others i think i'm right in there.

>> he's going to show us his tats. is it this bad you have to talk like this? anyway, i think it's going to be pawlenty, by the way. that's my pick. he's going to be the running mate. that's "hardball" for now. coming up next, "your business" with j.j. ramberg. patients will try and deal with it by drinking water. ter will work for a few seconds but if you're not drinking it, it's going to get dry again. i recommend biotene. all the biotene products like the oral rinse...the sprays have enzymes in them. the whole formulation just works very well. it leaves the mouth feeling fresh. if i'm happy with the results and my patients are happy with the results, i don't need to look any farther. the calcium they take because they don't take it with food. switch to citracal maximum plus d. it's the only calcium supplement that can be taken with or without food. that's why my doctor recommends citracal maximum. it's all about absorption.

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